Salary Subsidy Scheme

What is the Goa Salary Subsidy Scheme?

Salary Subsidy Scheme, 2018 is an employment incentive of the Department of Information Technology, Electronics and Communications, Government of Goa. It was framed in pursuance of clause 6.2.8.a of the Goa Information Technology Policy 2018, notified on 18 July 2018, and was itself notified on 6 August 2018 and published in the Official Gazette, Series I No. 21, on 23 August 2018 under Notification No. 2(8)/DOIT/2018/Salary Subsidy/755.

The scheme's stated objective is short: to provide Salary Subsidy to the eligible IT units in the State of Goa. The mechanism is narrower and more interesting than that suggests. Goa does not subsidise payroll generally. It subsidises the hiring of freshers, people entering the IT workforce for the first time, because the policy's diagnosis is that units will not absorb untrained local graduates unless the cost of the first two years is shared.

The design also carries a deliberate gender premium: the cap for a female fresher is Rs 12,500 per month against Rs 10,000 for a fresher generally, a 25% difference intended to pull more women into Goa's IT workforce.

The Campus Recruitment Assistance Scheme was notified alongside it in the same notification, and covers the cost of recruiting rather than the cost of salary. The two are separate schemes with separate claims.

Who is eligible for the Salary Subsidy Scheme?

Your unit can apply if:

• It is a New or Existing Unit with operations in Goa.
• It is one of these legal forms: a proprietorship firm, a private limited company or public limited company under the Companies Act, 2013 (or equivalent), a registered partnership firm under the Indian Partnership Act, 1932 (or equivalent), or a limited liability partnership under the LLP Act, 2008 (or equivalent).
• The bank accounts of the company's directors are linked to Aadhaar, and so are the bank accounts of the freshers being claimed.
• It can produce Udyog Aadhaar.
• The freshers claimed were recruited during the operation period of the policy.
• Each fresher claimed has been employed for a minimum period of one year.

You cannot apply, or are not eligible, if:

• You are an individual employee. The subsidy is paid to the unit, not to the fresher, even though the fresher's Aadhaar and bank account are required.
• Your unit is availing similar financial incentives under any other policy of the Government of Goa.
• The person claimed is not a fresher as the scheme defines it. An individual who has worked for more than two years before pursuing post-graduation is not considered a fresher.
• The fresher has not completed one year of employment with the unit.
• The unit cannot produce Udyog Aadhaar, or the directors' or freshers' bank accounts are not Aadhaar-linked.

Continued eligibility is checked. The scheme states that units are subject to evaluation at the end of the fiscal year to verify eligibility to continue receiving benefits.

How does the scheme define a "fresher"?

This is the definition that decides most claims, and it is worth reading closely.

• An individual who has worked for more than two years before pursuing post-graduation is not considered a fresher for the purposes of this incentive.
• Where the individual has less than two years of experience prior to the post-graduation, the individual is considered a fresher — but the duration for which the individual is treated as a fresher is calculated on a pro-rata basis.
• In case of ambiguity, the discretion whether to consider the individual a fresher lies with the supported Committee.

In practice this means a candidate who worked eighteen months, then did a master's degree, then joined your unit is a fresher but not for the full two years. A candidate who worked three years before the master's is not a fresher at all.

How much does the subsidy pay?

According to the notification, all New and Existing Units can avail a salary subsidy for freshers recruited during the operation period of the Policy. The subsidy is provided as a matching grant to the salary paid to freshers:

The subsidy runs for a period of 2 continuous years of operation post the notification of the policy.

Two words in that formula do real work. "Matching" means the grant tracks the salary actually paid; a fresher paid Rs 8,000 a month does not generate a Rs 10,000 claim. "Up to" means the caps are ceilings, not entitlements. At the ceiling, a unit employing ten freshers, five of them women, is looking at up to Rs 1,12,500 a month.

Benefits are subject to budgetary allocation, and the notification records that the provisions of the policy and its schemes are not binding representations or assurances on the part of the Government, with promissory estoppel expressly excluded.

What documents does the claim need?

The claim also requires the Common Application Form, the application form for units (Annexure 1) and the declaration form for units (Annexure 2). Annexure 1 asks for the number of eligible freshers, the total basic salary paid per month split between male and female, the amount being claimed, the period for which the subsidy is claimed, and the amount eligible per policy.

How to apply for the Salary Subsidy Scheme

1. Register on goaonline.gov.in. Verify your email ID and mobile number by OTP, complete the registration form, and create a login name and password.
2. File the Common Application Form (Part 1) with the requisite documents. The scheme allows the form and documents to be emailed or submitted on the web portal, and a unique registration number is generated for the unit by the Department of Information Technology.
3. Link the Aadhaar of the directors and of every fresher to their bank accounts, and obtain Udyog Aadhaar for the unit if you do not already hold it. Both are eligibility conditions, not paperwork.
4. Let each fresher complete one full year of employment, keeping PF contribution records or salary slips month by month as the proof.
5. Log in to goaonline.gov.in, open Services, then IT Services, and select the Salary Subsidy Scheme to open its application form.
6. Submit the Common Application Form (Part 2) with the incentive-specific form (Annexure 1) to the Due Diligence Committee, listing each eligible fresher, the basic salary paid, the period claimed and the amount claimed.
7. Attach the signed declaration form (Annexure 2) and upload the freshers' Aadhaar copies and employment proofs.
8. Track the 90-day timeline on the Goa Online status-tracking page: scrutiny by day 30, approval by day 60, sanction or regret letter and disbursement by day 90.

Who decides the claim and how fast?

The Due Diligence Committee scrutinises the application against the checklist. The supported Committee is the competent authority to accept or reject any claim filed by a unit, and its decision is final and binding on the applicant. The supported Committee also holds the discretion on borderline fresher classifications.

The published disbursement timeline is:

Claims may be filed quarterly, half-yearly or annually after incurring the relevant expenditure.

Why do Salary Subsidy claims get rejected?

• The employee is not a fresher under the scheme's two-year prior-experience rule.
• One year of employment not completed at the time of the claim.
• Employment proof missing or thin. PF contribution records and salary slips are what establish both the tenure and the salary; a bare appointment letter does neither.
• Freshers' bank accounts not Aadhaar-linked, or the directors' accounts not Aadhaar-linked.
• Udyog Aadhaar not produced.
• Another Goa Government incentive already availed for the same purpose.
• Recruitment fell outside the operating period of the policy.
• Fiscal-year re-evaluation fails, ending a running subsidy.

Where do I complain?

The Department of Information Technology, Electronics and Communications, Government of Goa is the first point of contact, and its scheme and policy pages are at dit.goa.gov.in. The supported Committee is the deciding authority under the scheme, and the Department is where a delayed file should be pursued against the published 90-day timeline.

Application status can be tracked on goaonline.gov.in, which is also the State's route for registering a public grievance where the Department's response is unsatisfactory.

Practical points

• Check the current notification before you budget for it. The 2018 scheme was framed to remain in force for 5 years from its notification, published on 23 August 2018, and Goa's IT policy has been reviewed since. Confirm what is operative with the Department of IT rather than assuming.
• Classify candidates at the offer stage, not at the claim stage. The two-year prior-experience test is easy to apply before hiring and painful to argue afterwards.
• Budget for the first year yourself. Nothing is payable until a fresher has completed twelve months, so this is a reimbursement of a cost already borne.
• Track the female-fresher headcount separately. The Rs 12,500 cap is 25% higher, and Annexure 1 requires the male and female salary figures to be reported separately in any case.
• Read the Campus Recruitment Assistance Scheme next if you hire from colleges; it sits in the same notification and covers a different cost.

How to check your Salary Subsidy Scheme application status

1. Log in to goaonline.gov.in with the same login name and password used to register the unit and file the Common Application Form.
2. Open the "My Applications" or status-tracking section of the portal and select the application filed under IT Services for the Salary Subsidy Scheme. The unique registration number generated at the time of filing the Common Application Form is what the portal uses to pull up the file.
3. Read the status against the published four-stage timeline, not just a generic "pending" label:
   • Receipt (Day D): the claim has been logged against the unit's registration number.
   • Scrutiny (by D + 30 days): the Due Diligence Committee is checking the claim against the document checklist, the fresher definition, and the one-year employment condition.
   • Approval (by D + 60 days): the supported Committee has reviewed the scrutinised file.
   • Sanction or regret, with disbursement (by D + 90 days): the unit either receives a sanction order and payment, or a regret letter stating why the claim was not accepted.
4. If the status has not moved past a stage within its published window, do not assume the claim is lost. Quarterly, half-yearly and annual filing cycles mean the Committee may be working through a batch of claims together, so a short slip past D + 30 or D + 60 is common before scrutiny catches up.
5. If a regret letter is issued, it should state the reason. Common ones (missing Aadhaar linkage, a fresher who fails the two-year prior-experience test, incomplete one-year employment) can often be corrected and the claim refiled for the next filing cycle rather than appealed.
6. For a file that shows no movement well past D + 90 days, follow up directly with the Department of Information Technology, Electronics and Communications, Government of Goa (dit.goa.gov.in), quoting the unit's registration number and the filing period claimed. No dedicated helpline number is published for this scheme, so the Department's office and the goaonline.gov.in grievance route are the two channels to use.
7. Keep the unit's own record of the claim period, freshers listed and amount claimed alongside the portal status. Since the subsidy is claimed quarterly, half-yearly or annually, a unit with more than one open claim should track each filing period's status separately rather than treating the portal's latest status as covering all pending claims.